Crane's Return
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: 30 years after the fateful All Hallow's Eve night on which Ichabod Crane disappeared, it seems he has returned to Sleepy Hollow once again. However, nothing is quite how it seems.
1. Chapter 1

Crane's Return

It was a cool and windy and sunny day in late September. What could be a day of beauty was instead one of terror. All the townspeople were screaming mad and seemed to be running for their lives, screams about ghosts and poltergeist filling the air. As a selected few who had still remained in the church were coming out from services, among them the ever feared Brom Bones and his beautiful, petite wife, Katrina Van Tassel, they were curious to what was going on.

Brom Bones, a man now in his 60s and his age beginning to show but ever still the bear of a man, grabbed a running gent by his coat collar and demanded to know what all the hollering was about.

"Tis the ghost of Ichabod Crane, he' come back from the dead!" the man replied before he resumed running in the opposite direction.

"Ichabod?" Katrina asked.

"He doesn't know what he's talking about," Brom insisted, "But all the same, let us do find out what is going on around here."

Sleepy Hollow was a quaint little village up the Hudson River that was famous for its frightful apparitions, though none quite so famous nor so terrifying as the ghost of the headless Hessian soldier whose head was torn off by a stray cannonball fired by the Revolutionaries during the war. Though his body had been buried in a graveyard near the church, his spirit was a restless one that rode out on dark nights searching for his head and rumored to take that of any who might get in his way.

30 years ago a tall and slender schoolmaster by the name of Ichabod Crane had resided in Sleepy Hollow, and on the night of All Hallow's Eve 30 years ago, he had disappeared. Some say that he had raced with the Horsemen to the church's bridge from which the ghost should have disappeared, but he got Ichabod nonetheless. Others say that after Brom Bones had wed Katrina, Ichabod's ghost could be heard laughing and singing around the schoolhouse where he had formerly taught. Others say that Ichabod simply left Sleepy Hollow after being scared away, and became a lawyer in Connecticut.

Nobody could ever determine the schoolmaster's fate but now it seemed that regardless of what had been, now he had returned. Taking Katrina by the hand, Brom Bones stomped forth on the road to go in the direction of which most others were running away from. Many people surrounded them screaming and gasping in terror at the sight that they beheld before them.

"I don't see anything," Brom said as he looked forth and failed to see what the others did, "I don't see anything!

Katrina, whose eyes were still sharp from her youth, however did see something. "I see him!" She pointed directly ahead, "There he is, look!"  
And suddenly, Brom saw what his wife and all the rest of the townsfolk saw. Coming their way was a figure on horseback. A terrifying and familiar figure, one that struck horror in most everybody who saw it; the horse was black as midnight as were its reins, the figure that rode it was tall and thin with a head of short black hair, pale skin and a rather unsightly nose.

"Dear God preserve us," Katrina exclaimed, "It is Ichabod."

"It can't be," Brom replied.

The horse came up the road at a frightening speed, its rider was determined to reach a final destination and the rider rode with such swift and fury, one might think he were outrunning the Headless Horseman, or given the seemingly devil may care behavior of the rider, maybe racing _with_ the Horsemen.

The reins were tugged and the horse came to a sudden stop, and everybody gasped in shock and horror as they saw plain as day the face that they so many years ago recognized as that of their beloved schoolmaster, Crane. But this was not Crane, at least not the one they knew, even with 30 years come and gone he looked ever as youthful as he did when last seen at the party at the Van Tassel farm. Ichabod's gentle and charming and loving face and the eyes that were just filled with optimism were replaced, the eyes now glass and hard, the face practically set in stone of a horrible scowl.

He dressed in a black tri-fold cap and wore dark black clothes, long and thin like the body that wore them. At the waist a belt was worn that supported one flintlock pistol and one saber. Then, to add to everybody's shock and amaze, they found that this man was in fact not a man but a woman. A woman with Ichabod's face and build, and when she spoke, a harsh voice came from her mouth.

"Which of you is Brom Bones?" she asked.

Once again many gasped and Brom himself turned a shade of white. Despite his fear of what was to follow from this, he took a step forward and said, "I am Brom Bones, and what be you?"

The woman removed her cap and ran her hand through her hair as she answered, "I, peasant, am Isabella Crane…Ichabod Crane's daughter."

Nobody could believe what they heard, Ichabod Crane's daughter. Though it fit that she would look like him, it was unbelievable in the fact that he had been long thought dead. 

"Ichabod," Katrina took a step forward, then another, "Is he…is he?"

Isabella got off her horse and walked over to Katrina and looked her dead in the eye, "My father passed away this last May."

"Heaven protect him," she replied.

"Why have you come here?" Brom asked.

She turned around to him with a look that could kill him dead in his tracks. Her eyes looked glassy and cold, but she answered by taking out a piece of yellowed paper, "This."

Brom took out the paper and unrolled it, it was a notification that Sleepy Hollow needed a new schoolmaster.

"You want a job as a schoolmarm? Is that it?" Brom asked.

"A schoolmaster, Bones. Who is in charge of the schoolhouse?"

"Have you a place to stay?" another man asked.

"About that," Isabella went back to her horse and took down a bundle that was wrapped up on its back, she reached into it, "Are there any houses for buying out here? I brought some money to buy a home." She took out a large bag full of coins, "You think this is enough?"

"Yes it is, unfortunately there aren't any houses for the buying or selling currently," he told her.

"You can stay with us," Katrina offered.

"She can…" Brom was about to say she could not, but instead he answered, "She most certainly can."

"Your hospitality is overwhelming," Isabella dryly responded.

* * *

Half an hour later, Isabella with her little bundle and big bag of money, was settled into a guest room of the Van Tassel estate. Her horse was kept out in the stable with those of the Van Tassel family, her saber and pistol she did not remove, nor assure neither would see use before the day was through.

A dinner was made and she was asked to join the Van Tassels at the table so while they ate, she could explain what had happened to her father. Over a roast turkey, Isabella started to explain what became of Ichabod all those years ago.

"After that night of facing the Headless Horseman, my father was knocked unconscious. When he woke up, he decided to get out of Sleepy Hollow, and it was the hardest thing for him to do in all his life," she explained, "Because it meant leaving you, Miss Van Tassel."

Katrina blushed, a woman her 60s she still maintained much of her beauty and vigor from her youth, and though she wouldn't admit it to her husband, every day she woke up thinking about Ichabod. Missing him and wondering what might have come of them if he had stayed in Sleepy Hollow, might they had married and had children were thoughts she was all too familiar with.

"Anyway," she continued, "After that he went back home to Connecticut and as the legend has gone, he married a wealthy widow, but he only had one child, that being myself. My mother died when I was a little girl and my father was left to raise me himself, long before he had quit as a schoolmaster and became a lawyer. I guess I should be thankful, he sent me to school and it would've been awkward him being there to teach me."

"I must say," Brom commented, "He didn't raise you too well a woman, did he?"

She giggled, "My father did his best, unfortunately he knew about as much on raising girls as a donkey knows about New Year. So you could say I turned out more of a man than a woman."

"Well I wouldn't say that," Brom said.

He felt somebody kick him under the table but he didn't say anything.

"So why didn't Ichabod ever return to Sleepy Hollow?" Katrina asked.

"Yes," Brom said, "I'm most curious to the answer of this question myself."

"I had a feeling you would be," she said, "Well…my father wanted to come back, and he wanted to see you again, Miss Van Tassel, but he was afraid, he feared for his life. He worried if he came back he might be killed."

"Killed?" Brom laughed, "By a non-existent ghost?"

"Oh no," Isabella roared with laughter in response, "You see, Bones, that's exactly what I'm talking about, not a ghost at all."

"How…how did Ichabod die?" Katrina wondered.

"That's hard to say…the doctor ruled it natural causes…but I don't believe it. I think it was a broken heart that done him in."

"How tragic," Katrina replied.

"Yes it is, my father loved my mother, but only for a spell…in fact I think he was happier once she passed…Katrina, my father spoke to me about you every day of his life. He told me about how beautiful you were and how very much a woman and one of the best you were, and he regretted not staying to marry you."

"Oh…" she blushed again. Feeling herself ready to tear up, she tried to change the subject before she became much more upset, "How…how did you decide to become a schoolteacher?"

"Oh well my whole life I knew my father had two professions, schoolmaster and lawyer, I knew him all my life as a lawyer but he did teach me the tricks of the trade to being a schoolmaster as well. He knew that I wasn't likely to get married so I had to work, because I don't like the idea of living off of somebody else when I can do for myself. And let us be honest since we are all adults, when you're a man and you look like this it's one thing…but when you're a _woman_ and you look like this," she laughed, "No man will marry you unless you've had a few too many swigs of something."

"So you decided to go into school teaching from that?" Katrina asked.

"Well, I can't cook and I can't clean and I can't sew, I don't know how to milk a cow and I can't churn butter, and I can't write poetry, and I can't sculpt models, and I can't pose for a portrait. There are only two things I know how to do work wise and both come from watching my father do it. So when I turned 21 I told him 'Either I become a schoolmaster or I'm going down to the courthouse with you and am going to start lawyering alongside of you.'."

Katrina and Brom both had a hearty laugh at that comment, though Brom's was more for show than anything. He was finding this conversation about as entertaining as having his tongue nailed to the table.

"There's never been a woman lawyer before," Katrina said.

"I know."

"And with any luck, there never will be," Brom said, "What would a woman know about being a lawyer?"

"My guess would be I know as much about lawyering and you know about scaring people," Isabella replied, "Anyway, I wanted more to teach than to lawyer but if I ever got the itch to suddenly turn tail to that work, I'd be ready to fight to the end of me for it."

"So Ichabod raised a fighter," Brom noted.

"No, I raised myself a fighter," Isabella answered, "My father never was much for it. He preferred to take fights to the courthouse."

"I doubt he ever could win a fight of strength," Brom said.

"Brom, please," Katrina said.

"Well Bones," Isabella replied, "Strength is not all it's cracked up to be. I suppose if your life is set being a pack mule, that's one thing, but intellect and knowledge can win far more battles than pure muscle alone."

"You speak so highly against strength, and look at yourself," Brom said, "Every bit as scrawny as your father, I bet you couldn't lift a heavy object if your life depended on it."

Isabella reached across the table and grabbed Brom's hand and slammed his arm down on the table. "If I were you I'd be more careful about my gambling."

"You've barely touched you turkey, Miss Crane," Katrina said.

"Isabella, my name is Isabella. I'm the daughter of a widow and a lawyer, formalities have no place with me."

"Isabella, is there something the matter with it?"

"Oh no…I just, haven't had much of an appetite since my father passed." She held up her scrawny arm to show them, "I used to be much plumper than this but…when he died, I couldn't eat. After burying him I could find no solace in food, only nausea, so lo and behold the sight before you today."

"So do tell," Brom said, "What exactly is it that brings you out this way?"

"Yes," Katrina agreed. Isabella had set down the notice in the paper in the middle of the table and Katrina picked it up, "Exactly how did this get all the way to Connecticut?"

"By sheer chance I got acquainted with a charming fellow who was coming out my way from here and he was spreading word of what was in the paper, that Sleepy Hollow was in need of a new schoolmaster. Well I'd already done some teaching back home, but after my father passed, it just became too much, handling the same kids I've dealt with for years, then going home to an empty house to remember that he wasn't coming home. So I decided to leave."

"And come here," Brom added.

"Yes, my father often said he'd like to come back but he was always afraid to, so I decided to make the trip out for him and find out what went on here."

"Well now tell me something, do you _really_ believe that it was some ghost on horseback that drove Ichabod away?" Brom asked smugly.

"No," there was a dead certainty in her voice, and her eyes as she looked towards him, "He was driven away by a man. By some foolish man who decided to scare him away and dressed up like a specter to do so. That's the conclusion he came to long ago, and that's why I'm really here. The job as schoolmaster is only a bonus where I'm concerned, I've come out here to find the man who scared my father off. Nobody, but nobody, I assure you, messes with a Crane and lives to boast about it. Even if it takes 30 years to right the wrong, that's what I'm going to do." She looked to Brom, "You, you boasted that night at the party having raced with the Horseman for a bowl of punch, did you not?"

"That I did."

"So you believe in ghosts?"

"Maybe…did your father tell you about the ghost?"

"He told me the stories about all of Sleepy Hollow's ghosts…but he also told me, before he died, that what he thought to be a ghost at the bridge that night was no ghost. If it were, it would've disappeared at the bridge, and since it did not, it means we are dealing with a flesh and blood man, and one who may still be alive, in this town. I will find him."


	2. Chapter 2

That afternoon, Isabella went out and disappeared in a crowd of people who wanted to hear the stories of how her father escaped the Headless Horseman. Like Brom she could tell tall tales and she liked to boast them loudly, so she stood on an apple crate and had everybody gather round while she told the tale.

"It was on that dark and fateful night that my father, the great Ichabod Crane came to meet up with the Headless Horseman. The Hessian hid off in the shadows he did and my father called 'Who be there?' and got no reply, so he kept on riding waiting for the moonlight to fill the sky. When the moon came out from the clouds, he heard a horse following him and he turned and looked and saw that headless soldier's spirit coming after him. So he kicked ol' Gunpowder in the sides and shrieked 'To the bridge, to the bridge, Gunpowder, to the bridge!' And it was then that the race was on.

"The faster he went, the faster the Horsemen got to keep up with him. It was a long hard race to the old church bridge, for my father was certain once there he would be safe. Looking back again he saw the Horsemen bore a blade on his side and a flaming pumpkin in his hand, this was no joke, this specter was dead serious about what intentions he had for his nightly business. The saddle dropped from ol' Gunpowder and Ichabod just barely hung on grabbed around the horse's neck, no matter what he did the Horsemen ensued chase after him.

"Finally, when all hope seemed lost, the bridge appeared up ahead, 'Aha!' he said, 'I've made it now, I'm in the clear once I pass through here'. But this was not the be and end all of what was that night, for once he crossed the bridge, the Horsemen still appeared. He lifted up his flaming pumpkin and flung it at my father, but he missed and it smashed on the ground. The Horseman rode on and drew his sword and held it out to meet with Ichabod's neck but the frightful sight disappeared before his very eyes just before the blade could sever his head from his body. Well there's only so much that one man can endure and he'd had enough frights in one night to last him the rest of his life so he said 'I'm going back home' where he settled down and brought forth the woman that's before you now telling this tale of days long past."

Everybody was entertained and engrossed by the sight before them and listening to the wild story that Isabella Crane had to offer. Of them all, one man and one man alone was not amused and that be Brom Bones. He knew something that only he knew and he would go to his grave before he admitted it to anybody else, including his loving wife, Katrina. With this Crane came a feeling of uncertainty and dread, but Brom remained certain of one thing, he was dead certain that this new schoolmaster wouldn't last through the month.

Later Katrina and Brom went to find Isabella and found her leaning against a large leafy tree with a wide base, with a long piece of wood in one hand and a small blade in the other.

"Hello Isabella," Katrina called.

She looked up and called, "Hello Miss Van Tassel, how are you?"

"We thought we'd come and see how you're doing," she replied.

"Oh swell, I got everything I need here, I got a fine jug of corn whiskey, and my pipe, and my whittling knife."

"Oh, what're you whittling?" Katrina asked, taking in the long piece of wood.

"Oh, it's a rod…I couldn't find any beech trees and they make the best ones…so I went to the sawmill and picked up some wood."

"A rod?" Brom repeated.

"Well I will be the new schoolmaster, and it's the master's responsibility to discipline the students when they don't behave…and if they're anything like they were when my father taught, I'll be needing the rods…" she laughed, "That's how he brought me up and I still have a couple marks on my…on my behind to prove it, and I never forgot."

Never in his life was Brom sorry he and Katrina had never had children, that was one less person to fight for the Van Tassel inheritance; but now he wished he had one, a son, one that he could mold to be the schoolmaster's perfect nightmare. Of course, he knew that Sleepy Hollow was still very superstitious, and if word were to come out that the new schoolmaster was a witch…he liked that idea, it had definite possibility.

"I'm sure you'll make a great schoolmaster," Katrina said, then added, "That does sound odd, doesn't it?"

"How's that?" Isabella asked as she lit her pipe and stuck it in her mouth.

"Well, a man is the schoolmaster, a woman is a schoolmarm."

"Yeah, but there's not enough woman in me to go marming around," Isabella replied.

"I trust you don't plan to wear those in the schoolhouse," Brom said.

She looked at him with a puzzled look, "Wear what, my trousers?"

"No, your arms."

She looked down at the belt that suspended her sword and gun, "Sure I do."

"What?"

Katrina laughed hysterically, "Well, without a doubt, nobody will think you a schoolmarm then."

"Bones, I don't know if you're aware of it, but when my father taught at the schoolhouse, there was great trouble there. He thought it was poltergeist, but I don't know…I stick to my suspicions that some wicked man deliberately scared him to run him out of town without being an object of suspicion himself. Well, if it be so, and if that same man try anything with me, he won't live long enough to laugh about it."

"Don't be daft, the schoolhouse where you're to teach is a different one from where Ichabod taught. After he…disappeared, they brought it down."

"I'm aware, but a man can travel from one school to another, do you deny this?" she replied.

"Isabella, will you be out long?" Katrina asked.

"Oh as long as the sun, I have to make several more rods," she answered.

"Well, dinner will be in a few hours."

"Okay, I'll come in then."

They turned around and headed back towards the house.

"Oh she is a nice one," Katrina said, "And so much like Ichabod, it's downright eerie."

"Something's eerie about it allright," Brom said, "And I'm going to find out what it is."

"What're you going on about, Brom?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"I just can't believe it," she said, "Ichabod Crane alive for 30 years after leaving this town and now dead and gone…only his daughter remains."

"Yes."

"It must be fate."

Fate, that word could make Brom sick. It was fate that drew Crane off and fate that let them be married and fate that Katrina's father died years ago and fate that they never had any children, now fate that the offspring of the man he hated with every inch of himself had come to live with them.

And she was looking for him, he remembered also. He couldn't let himself forget that simple fact, oh she might not know directly that he was responsible for scaring Ichabod off all those years ago, but she wanted the man responsible and that was him. Also he remembered how cold she was toward him, she had absolutely no respect for him, she didn't call him 'Mister' once since her arrival. She'd only used his first name once when she first rode into town, she'd brought with her a gun and a sword. No, a saber and if his guess was right, a cavalry saber, such used nearly 25 years ago.

Ordinarily Brom wouldn't think he had much to fear from a _woman_ bearing arms but he had to remind himself this was no regular woman. This was the grown child of Ichabod Crane who raised a man out of a girl, and he feared she could very well kill him with either weapon with little struggling if she decided to.

Oh there was no supposing about it, this woman, this female schoolmaster, had to be done away with, run out of town, or just plain killed before she got too wise for her own good. Brom would see to that, he didn't know how, yet, but he would figure a way.

* * *

As the sun started to set, Isabella came inside with six freshly whittled rods, her pipe, and an empty whiskey jug. Dinner consisted of roast pig, mince pies, corn on the cob, hot bread with butter, gooseberry pie, and a jug of wine. Where Isabella lacked an appetite during the noon hour she now seemed to have inherited her father's hunger because she took parts of everything and asked for more when she was through.

"Did you get well acquainted with the town folk?" Katrina asked.

"Oh yes," she replied, "Most of them seemed rather pleasant, and they were all pleased that I was to take over position as schoolmaster. Some of them remember my father and commented it's nice I'm taking over in his work."

"So are you looking forward to going to work tomorrow?" Brom asked.

"Oh yes…it's been so long since I did any teaching. After my father died I just sort of dropped out of it for a while until I could move somewhere else and start again, to be honest I missed it."

"Well I'm sure you'll take back to it like a fish to water," Brom insisted.

"I do believe you're right, and I think it'll do me some good."

"Providing the ghosts don't scare you away," he laughed.

"That can't possibly happen, Bones," she said.

"Why? You don't believe in them either?" he smugly asked, feeling very full of himself.

"Oh no, in my life I've been among the company of many, many ghosts and ghouls and specters. I can assure you after all the spirits I have known, it's going to take more than a headless Hessian soldier to frighten me away from this quaint little village of yours."

Brom grinned, more to himself than to her comments, and he thought to himself, _We'll just see what it takes to frighten you away, Crane._

"But do you really think you'll find out what drove Ichabod away all those years ago?" Katrina asked.

"Well I certainly intend to do so…ever since my father told me what happened, when I was a little girl…I always tried to think, just _why_ was he driven away?"

"What do you mean?" Brom asked.

"Well, the man who scared him off clearly did it for a reason, but what reason exactly? When my father worked as a lawyer, every case he had, he took great trouble to prove that every case had to have a motive somewhere. So what was the motive in his being scared off so many years ago? Why should anybody want to drive away a simple schoolmaster? It wasn't for his money, it wasn't for his land, he had neither. It wasn't for a discovery of something, he never found anything in this whole place. So what was there to gain by him disappearing from Sleepy Hollow forever?"

Katrina couldn't think of a thing, Brom could but he chose not to speak lest his words lynch him.

"One thing is for sure, if that man is still in Sleepy Hollow, I'm going to find him, I'm going to hunt him down and kill him like the dog he is. I'll tear him limb from limb, I'll run him clear through, I will."

Brom wasn't sure he believed she actually could be capable of such a thing, but he still had a horrible feeling eating away at him that she was going to find the right man for what happened, and then there would be consequences to suffer.

* * *

That night, Brom tried to sleep but could not sleep, he kept tossing and turning over and over in the bed, remembering what Isabella had said. Never in his entire life had he ever met a woman so determined to seek revenge on something, let alone something that didn't even involve her. He wasn't sure what he was going to do and that bothered him more than anything had ever bothered him in his entire life.

It was an extremely windy night and the winds seemed to howl like a banshee. Brom tried to ignore the ghastly noises but the more he tried to ignore them, the more they seemed to try to form words. After a while the wind seemed to be calling him, "Brom Bones", he heard the owls hooting but they weren't hoots any longer, they were calling "Brom Bones", and the crickets chirped but they no longer chirped except in two words, "Brom Bones".

He was certain he was only imagining these voices saying these words and he tried to block out the sound with a pillow over his head. But the voices persisted, becoming louder, louder, "Brom Bones", "**Brom Bones**", "_Brom Bones!"_

The last mention of his name scared him enough that he almost jumped out of bed. He looked around the room, completely dark and nobody in sight, just a nightmare he supposed. He then turned to the window and his relief came to a quick end when he saw staring back at him through the window the pale, ghastly face of Ichabod Crane!

"_Brom Bones! Brom Bones!"_ the ghost moaned horribly.

Brom, who had never before in his entire life believed in ghosts, certainly believed in them now. He ran to the window but when he did, he saw that Ichabod had disappeared. What was going on here? After a moment to realize everything given their conditions, he had an idea that somebody was trying to scare him. For a moment it seemed to work, but now he told himself, that he was wide awake, he was going to get to the bottom of this fine kettle of fish.

He made for the door but before leaving, remembered to pick up his musket rifle, he had an idea that he had a mad crane bird to shoot before it attacked. Brom stormed over to the room where they had put Isabella for a guest and he decided rather than jump in and attack, he had better be clever about it. He grabbed the doorknob and just barely turned it to slide the bolt out of the wall and he pushed the door open. All was quiet, nothing moved, not a sound was made; Brom stuck his head in and found that the room was empty. Not only that, the bed hadn't been slept in and there were no discarded garments anywhere in the room.

So, Isabella Crane had decided to become a haunt. Brom smiled to himself as he imagined her lifeless body hung up on the wall like a trophy, of course such a thing couldn't be possible but he did like the idea of it. He slowly backed out of the room, ready to go hunting, and in so he bumped into his wife who had padded out into the hall. Brom screamed and his rifle went off, firing a shot into the roof.

"Really, Brom," Katrina said, not amused, "Don't you have anything better to do than sneaking around in the middle of the night frightening people to death?"

"Katrina, that Crane woman isn't in her room."

"What?"

"I was just in there, she's not there, the bed is made and her clothes are gone."

"Oh that's ridiculous."

"Have a look for yourself," he insisted.

Katrina went to the room and looked in and saw things exactly as her husband said they were. "Well there must be some sort of explanation for this."

"There is," Brom told her, "I saw that woman standing outside our bedroom window not 10 minutes ago."

"Oh Brom," Katrina said, "You're being ridiculous, you had a nightmare."

"It was no nightmare, I swear to you I saw that Crane woman standing outside the bedroom window."

From behind they heard a sudden, "You're absolutely right."

The two jumped with a start and turned around to see Isabella, still dressed and still with her weapons supported around her waist, standing at the back doorway.

"Isabella," Katrina said, "What's going on?"

"I didn't mean to alarm you, but I couldn't sleep, and I thought I heard somebody trespassing outside so I went to look around," she explained.

"Did you find anything?" Brom asked.

"No, I thought I saw him come around your window so I decided to look in and make sure everything was allright. I didn't mean to startle you."

The grandfather clock in the hall struck the witching hour. Katrina pulled her nightgown closer to her body as if a sudden breeze passed them. "Why aren't you asleep? You have to go to the schoolhouse early tomorrow morning."

"I guess I forgot to mention…I haven't slept well in the past few months…some nights I go to sleep late at night or rather early in the morning. Some nights I can't sleep at all, so I stay up pacing my room…or reading…I brought out with me my father's journals he kept once he started being a lawyer. If you'll excuse me, I think I'll start reading on them."

"Of course, goodnight, Isabella," Katrina said.

"Goodnight."

Her door closed behind her and Katrina turned to Brom, "Come on, Brom, let's go to bed…and put that silly thing," she pointed to his rifle, "Away before you hurt somebody."

"But, Katrina, I…" Brom decided to forget it, there was no reasoning with women, wives especially.

All the same, as he went back with her to their bedroom and climbed in beside her in bed, and laid down to sleep, he couldn't get over an uneasy feeling that what had happened tonight was just a sample of things to come so long as Ichabod Crane's daughter was in Sleepy Hollow, and especially their happy home.


	3. Chapter 3

Bright and early the next day, Isabella Crane came to the kitchen table for a quick breakfast of ham and bread and a cup of apple cider. Katrina and Brom had already been up tending to some of the work around the farm and were surprised to see her coming into the room in such a hurry.

"Did you sleep well last night?" Katrina asked.

"Beautifully…I hope you didn't have a hard time going back to bed," she replied.

"Not at all," Katrina answered.

With half the food consumed, Isabella got up for the door, "Well I hate to eat and leave like this but I want to make sure I get to the schoolhouse and get settled in before the children do."

"Good luck," Katrina said.

And Isabella was out the door and off to get her horse. Brom sat down at the table by her side and said, "She doesn't need luck, she needs a miracle. No woman can be a school_master_, they're all school_marms_. And if she tries to act like a master instead of a marm she's asking for nothing but trouble."

"Oh I don't know, Brom," Katrina replied, "She's a little unusual but sometimes the best people and the best teachers are. And besides, master or marm it doesn't matter because that's exactly what she's going to be, a teacher."

"Mark my words," Brom said, "They may like having her here for the time being, but once her newness wears off and she starts acting like she can run things like her father did, there's going to be a riot."

"A riot, oh I never heard such foolishness before in my life, Brom Bones. Ever since Isabella arrived yesterday you've been acting so queer, almost afraid. What is it about this little woman that's got you so upset?"

"Nothing has me upset, I'm just telling you what's to come of our new school teacher if she can't get it through her head that she's a woman and not a man. You think they'll tolerate her taking a sword and a gun to the schoolhouse, wearing them at all times? If Ichabod had tried that, they would've strung him up by his heels."

"Ichabod was a peaceful soul," Katrina thought aloud in remembrance, "He was a man full of love, and superstition, and hunger…he couldn't harm anybody if he ever tried."

"So where did this come from in his daughter, from the Yankee widow he married?" Brom asked.

"I don't care, Brom, she's Ichabod's daughter, she's friendly and she needs a place to stay and as long as I'm alive and living here, she'll _have_ a place to stay until she can find a house of her own to live in. Now come on, we have a long day of work ahead of us, the weather's going to be turning colder before we know it."

* * *

All the children of Sleepy Hollow ran in packs trying to get past the wind and beat the weather to the schoolhouse. The wind blew strong and hard and if the children weighed any less than they did they could easily have been blown away like all the colored leaves that went flying through the air. Despite the strong gusts, Isabella Crane managed to push open the doors to the schoolhouse and ring a large brass bell to call the children to class.

Children between the ages of five and twelve came in and took a seat in the room, oldest in back, youngest up front. Isabella had come expecting things to be set up already, but unlike the last schoolhouse she had been master to, this one had only one black board, and no boards of letters or numbers above it. She had expected better but she could work with what there was.

Once all the children were seated, she set down the bell and stood before them, all near six feet of her, pistol and saber at her sides, looking ever so much the part of her father that the resemblance was indeed a genuine fright. Only where in Ichabod's eyes there was an unexplainable kindess and warmth, only a bleak coldness could be found in hers. No warmth, no welcome rested in her eyes, only acknowledgement of the arrival of her students.

"Good morning, class," she said in a welcoming tone to contrast the bitterness that rested in her eyes.

"Good morning, Miss Crane," the children responded.

"As you know, I am the new schoolmaster, I consider my teaching methods fair and nothing above or less…going against the ethical code of the typical schoolmaster I'm going to show you respect but you have to do the same, otherwise I'll have to bring out the rod." She picked up the whittled rod and showed it off to the entire class, "I trust you're familiar with these from your previous schoolmaster."

The children agreed they had and she put it down again.

"Then we're agreed…alright, we'll begin with the first lesson of the day, in arithmetic." Picking up a piece of chalk, Isabella started drawing numbers on the board. "For everybody up front, here is your lesson for the day. 2 and 2 makes 4, 2 and 3 makes 5, 2 and 4 makes 6, 2 and 5 makes 7, 2 and 6 makes 8, 2 and 7 makes 9, 2 and 8 makes 10. That is the addition; to those in the second row we will work subtractions."

Below the row of added numbers she started taking them through a range of subtracted numbers. She progressed from one row of students to the next to the next until she was working multiplications with the 10 year olds.

"Now remember class, 9 multiplied by 11 is 99, 9 multiplied by 12 is 108, 9 multiplied by 13 is 117, 9 multiplied by…"

The lesson was cut off as the doors were thrown open and Brom Bones and a friend of his stepped into the classroom.

"Well class, it's a bit early for science but I give you exhibit A in the lower level of intelligence, the monkey," Isabella said as she pointed to Brom with her chalk.

The children laughed and couldn't be scared into silence by Brom's horrifying scowl.

"What do you want, Bones?" she asked, "I'm right in the middle of teaching the class their multiplication tables."

"Miss Crane, I apologize for intruding but something terrible has happened that you must come see at once," Brom said.

"What is it?" she asked.

"It's right beyond the grounds of the schoolhouse," Brom's friend insisted, "You must see it, quickly."

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm Fred Dumpkey."

She glared at Brom, "A friend of his?"

"Yes."

"Uh huh, I see," she turned back to the blackboard and picked up the chalk, "Gentlemen, if this is your idea of a joke, this schoolmaster is not amused, rest assure."

"Tis no joke," Brom said, "Something terrible has come about and you must see it."

"Why me, for heaven's sake?"

"Because it involves you."

"Oh it does, does it?" Isabella turned to her class, "While I find out what these two third world monkeys want with me, you resume your lessons until I get back."

"Yes, Miss Crane," the class replied.

Isabella left the schoolhouse and walked to the grounds behind it, following Brom and Fred. "If this is some idea of yours to have a good laugh at my expense…"

"I swear, Miss Crane," Brom said, "This is no joke."

They came to a stop when they reached a more wooded area, and right ahead of one large maple tree was a large hole dug in the ground.

Isabella's eyes grew wide and she took another step forward, then another, and another, and found that it was not a hole at all, but a grave, a long, narrow grave. At the head of the grave was a large gray stone with a carving in it. With much effort she was able to read "Crane, R.I.P." and that was all that could be read because the rest had been weathered away.

"Looks like somebody doesn't want you here," Brom said.

"And how, might I ask, did you two happen upon this?" she asked.

"I come out this way to chop wood," Fred explained, "I'd stored up a pile of it over yonder."

She looked in the direction he pointed, there was a small shack and beside it rested several hundred pieces of firewood. Considering it, she supposed that it would be possible to see the grave from there.

"Maybe this isn't meant for me," she said, "Maybe my father."

"Ichabod?" Brom asked.

"The stone is so old, it had a whole epitaph to it once upon a time, but the only parts remaining now are Crane, and R.I.P., surely 30 years worth of weather could've taken away the rest."

"But that grave is not 30 years old," Brom said, "The dirt is still fresh."

"This is true."

Isabella went closer to the grave and examined it and the ground surrounding it. Then she did something that shocked both men, she got into the grave and laid herself out in it.

"What are you doing?" Brom asked.

"Yes," she concluded, "This grave seems ideally dug for me. The right length and width, perfectly fitting if I do say so myself…it seems somebody has big plans for me and it's quite clear what they are."

"Any idea who might be responsible for it?" Brom asked.

"Could be any one of several possibilities…could be a town fool, could be somebody who doesn't like me, could be the man who drove my father out of this town 30 years ago. It could be anything and at the same time it could be nothing, all I know is that I'm not going to worry about it until they try something else."

"They?"

"They, him, however many people are involved, I still say if this is your idea of a joke, Bones, I'm not amused, and if this turns out to be just that, some demented joke on your part, there will be consequences."

"I can assure you," Brom said, "I had nothing to do with this grave and have no idea who dug it."

"For your sake I sincerely hope that's the truth…now if you'll excuse me, gentlemen, my class needs tending to."

* * *

Brom was upset that Isabella proved much harder to scare than her father had been. Although he and Fred had nothing to do with digging the grave, he had hoped it would convince her to pack her bag and leave Sleepy Hollow for good. However, a simple hole in the ground with an old tombstone wasn't about to frighten her, in fact, several times during the next few weeks she returned to the spot to lay in the grave and think to herself.

The students liked her, and what more the townsfolk enjoyed her as well. Brom wracked his brain trying to figure a way to get rid of her, however the only idea he could come up with was to spread word around that she was a witch. And yet, Sleepy Hollow had never had a burning or hanging for a witch of sorcerer, and if _he_ were to start telling people she was one, it might come back at him. Although he realized, if he were to say that he heard it from somebody else…but he knew that wouldn't work, he hadn't shown much interest in ghosts, why should he about witches?

Every meal, Isabella ate more and more and started to resemble her father more. During every meal he would speak with Isabella about just _why_ somebody would drive Ichabod away. What was at stake that they had to get him out of the way? Then at night, when there were gatherings, the old wives would spin their tales about the ghosts while the men sat out on rocking chairs smoking their pipes and also talking about the spirits. Isabella chose the men over the women and rocked and smoked alongside them as they enlightened her about some of the famous haunts of the towns.

"I too have had the fortune of being in the company of some spirits back home in Connecticut," she said to them one night, "Out in the graveyard on winter nights when the moon was full and the wind was strong, they'd come out of their earthly beds and they would remain restless all night long. Some where fat and some were thin, some were black and some where white, but all of them came out to raise hell on that night. I saw them fly through the air and swing through the trees, they danced on their graves and traveled in pairs of two or threes. They laughed and screamed and howled all through the night, just the thought of hearing those ghostly voices again would be enough to give anybody a fright."

Brom Bones was not amused by tall tales that were not his own and he quickly tried to change the subject everybody was talking about.

"So what do you think of that grave somebody dug for you, Miss Crane?" he asked.

"I think somebody's planning too far ahead for me and planning to make it happen sooner than it will," she replied. "But then again, I don't reckon whoever's responsible for it truly plans to kill me."

"And why not?" Brom asked.

"Because, if anybody were, how would they do it? Shoot me, stab me, poison me, beat me to death, maybe throw me in the river? If that were the case, they'd have done it by now. No, I think it's just some fathead trying to be funny."

"There are other ways to kill a person," Brom said, "Throw them under a speeding horse, set their home on fire while they sleep, pick up a large rock and strike from behind."

"Still, if that's what anybody had in mind, they would've tried by now." Isabella insisted.

"What do you make about the Headless Horseman?" Old Van de Berg asked her.

"I don't know, I've yet to see this fantastic spirit with my own eyes," she replied.

"Do you think it really was the Horseman that went after your father?" Mr. Palmer asked.

"I like to think not," she answered, "If it were, why would my father live past that night? He couldn't outrun the Horseman, and only those who were able to do so lived to tell about it…" she turned to Brom, "Like you, Bones, you outran the Horseman didn't you? Over a cup of punch you said?"

Several of the older men who had been at the Van Tassel party 30 years ago agreed that that was indeed the tale that Brom told of his encounter with the Hessian ghost.

"That's what I thought," she said, "Well, whenever I do run into this ghost of yours, I'll gladly outrun him and return here to tell you all about the encounter."

"And do you intend to fight him with that?" Mr. Palmer asked, gesturing to her saber.

"I might if the opportunity is right," she replied.

Mr. Van de Berg looked at her from the waist and said to her, "Excuse me, madam, but do you ever disrobe of your arms?"

She looked at him sternly and said in a firm voice as she shook her head, "No, I don't."

Brom looked at her through disbelieving eyes, the sight before him seemed almost impossible and was enough to make him sick.

* * *

"She makes no sense whatsoever," he told Katrina that night as they prepared for bed, "Here she says that a man drove Ichabod away and not the Horsemen, around everybody else she says the Headless Horseman chased him away."

"It's the stories, Brom," Katrina replied, "She knows that everybody loves to hear the stories about the Horseman. Isabella knows that everybody here knows about the Headless Horseman, and until it can be proven that a man did scare him away, everybody is going to believe the Horseman was responsible."

"Maybe so, but there's still something to that Crane that's just not right," Brom said, "It seems she never sleeps, but she always eats, and she always talks, and she's not afraid. If you had seen her when we first found that grave…imagine somebody digging a grave for you while you're still alive and already setting up the headstone."

Katrina shivered, "Just the idea of it sends chills up my back. If such a thing were to happen to _me_, I fear I'd go right out of my mind."

"Exactly, _that_ would be a normal reaction, especially coming from a woman. But this Crane it seems can't be scared with anything."

"Maybe it's all for the better, maybe she wasn't meant to be afraid," Katrina said.

"Everybody's afraid, Katrina…everybody has something they're frightened by."

"And you, Brom?" Katrina asked, "What are you afraid of?"

He didn't answer and told her to go to bed.

* * *

In the days to follow, Isabella Crane proved by the town folks' standards to be more of a man than her father had ever been. The townsmen enjoyed her company and found she could be as competitive as the best of them in anything they were up for. With her pistol she was issued a challenge to see how many whiskey jugs she could shoot, and she was paired up against Old Man Palmer's son who was roughly her own age, Edward Palmer.

Bullet for bullet, jug for jug, they were evenly matched, and when they had run out of jugs to shoot, Isabella thought of something else for them to compete in. Each of them took off their shoes and their stockings and ran backwards through a field, the idea was to see who could run backwards the farthest without falling. Edward Palmer tripped and flipped onto his back on the ground while Isabella continued past him.

It was also rumored but nobody would confirm if there was any truth to it, that Isabella had one night stripped of her jacket, blouse, trousers and shoes and in her girdle, corset and knickers swam against Robert Kaufman in the Hudson at midnight. It was a competition to see who could swim longer in the cold night in the freezing water. It was said that Robert came back on land after half an hour, but Isabella, ever persistent and refusing to give up, stayed in until the sun started to rise.

Whether or not it was true, Isabella had in a few weeks gained the respect of most everybody in all of Sleepy Hollow. If being a direct descendent to Ichabod Crane hadn't been enough, she had guaranteed that everybody in the village would know her, and they loved her. It was clear that she had not inherited many traits from her father; where he was shy and romantic, she was proud, daring and boastful. Some even said that she acted more like Brom Bones when he was younger, than Ichabod would have ever acted. This only worked to infuriate Brom even more so; for if there was anything he didn't want it was to be compared to a Crane of any sort.

Days turned into weeks and soon it was time for the Van Tassel's yearly party for All Hallow's Eve. The invitations were made and carried out, though Isabella being a live-in guest, would already be at the party. However her mind was focusing more on that of her work as schoolmaster than of attending the party.

She hurried off to the schoolhouse one day and when she went in to prepare for the class, she was in for a surprise. All the desks had been stacked up on one another after another after another, same with the chairs; all the schoolbooks had been thrown around and rested on random pages. The blackboard had a chalk drawing of an old crane bird with its head chopped off, with a warning, _Get out of Sleepy Hollow, Isabella Crane, or die._

She hadn't much time to think about what it all meant, for only a few minutes after she reached the schoolhouse, the children came in for class, and all were in awe by what had happened.

"Class," she said, not looking at them just yet, still focusing on the vandalism around her.

"Yes Miss Crane?" they asked, uneasy, nervous, wondering what was to come next.

She turned around to face the class and said to them, "Let's clean up, we've work to do."

For the next half hour, they picked up the books, separated the desks and put them back into place, and Isabella saw herself to getting rid of the dead Crane on the blackboard.

"That done," she said, "We'll forgo the arithmetic lesson for today."

* * *

Dinner that night was cooked goose with spice cakes and hot corn and mince and apple pies and a jug of wine. For the first time since she arrived, Isabella was quiet during the meal and just ate.

"How was school today, Isabella?" Katrina asked.

"Hmm?" Isabella had a dreamy look in her eyes as she realized she was being spoken to and she separated her teeth from the ear of corn she was devouring. "It was tolerable."

"Are the children giving you much trouble?" Brom asked.

"No, they're perfect angels," she replied.

"Well you're unusually quiet tonight," Brom said, "Usually you're bursting to tell us everything about how your day went. What's different tonight?"

"What's different is I don't feel like talking for once in four weeks," she answered, "That's my right and I'm entitled to it, besides I'd figure you'd be happy with me not saying anything for once since I came to town."

"It does seem a bit odd," Katrina said, "Aren't you feeling well?"

She rubbed her eyes, "I didn't sleep at all last night. I was hoping coming out here would help me sleep better but I've gotten even less."

"Ghosts keeping you awake?" Brom asked.

"I wish…I just can't stop thinking…_who_ in all this town would possibly want to get rid of my father? And why? If not for money, or revenge, then for what? What was it that my father was so partial to here that he had to be gotten out of the way?"

After a couple minutes of silence, Isabella picked up a piece of the goose meat and said she was heading out for a walk along the Hudson and would be back later in the night.

"Maybe the night air will help me sleep," she said as she headed out the door.

"I hope she's alright," Katrina said.

"She's fine," Brom insisted.

Half an hour later when they had finished eating, Brom announced he was going to go visit with Fred Dumpkey for a while and he too would be back later in the night. He left Katrina alone in the house, and after he had gone out, she went to their bedroom and pulled out a hidden picture that in all their years together, Brom had never seen. It was a portrait she'd had painted of Ichabod, shortly after he disappeared but before she agreed to marry Brom. The portrait had captured every detail of Ichabod as she had remembered then. Now she was older and her mind was weakening and she couldn't remember him so well, so this picture was an everyday reminder to her of how he looked when she last saw him.

She did love Brom, but she always felt she made a mistake by marrying him instead of Ichabod. Had he not disappeared, she honestly didn't know if she would have wed him or not. Some nights she lay awake wondering how life would have been as Katrina Van Tassel Crane, if they would have had children, if so, how many, she always dreamed of having a boy and a girl. But those days were gone, _Ichabod_ was gone, gone forever, she reminded herself.

Meanwhile, down at the Hudson River, Isabella had just finished a strong swim and was fastening up her clothes when she heard somebody nearby on horseback. She didn't think anything of it and instead set her attention to refastening her gun belt. Then the horse seemed to pick up speed as it rode along in the night; it made an angry noise and that got her attention. She looked and saw in the pale moonlight, a dark figure riding a black horse, and when the figure came into full view she saw that its rider was one of perfect build, except for a missing head.


	4. Chapter 4

The Headless Horseman came at Isabella, but she jumped out of the way, not sure of what to believe about this sight before her. The horse turned and came back towards her, and she jumped out of the way again, this time landing in a pile of fallen leaves that rolled away and took her part of the way with them. She raised her pistol from her belt and as the Horseman came towards her again, pulled the trigger sharply and quickly. A shot fired and seemed to have hit the rider, but made no indication that it had indeed struck him.

However, the horse turned away and the Headless Horseman rode off into the night. Isabella didn't care to follow. She just headed back for the Van Tassel farm where she could put this experience behind her.

It was 10 o' clock when Isabella returned back to the house, by which time Brom had returned from visiting Fred, and both he and Katrina had waited up for her.

"You were gone a long time," Katrina noted, "Did something happen?"

"A ghost is all," she said.

"What's that?" Brom asked.

"Nothing…I'm tired and cold and I think I'll sleep like the dead tonight," Isabella said as she headed for her room.

They watched her descend into her room and shut the door, Katrina turned to Brom and said, "She doesn't look well, I think something _did_ happen to her tonight."

"If it had," Brom insisted, "Wouldn't she have said so?"

"I'm not sure," Katrina replied, "I just have an awful feeling that something happened to her out at the river tonight."

"Well she's back now, so we can go to sleep," Brom said, "That's all I'm concerned about."

Katrina went with Brom in retiring to their room for the night. What they hadn't noticed was that Isabella's door was slightly ajar, and from the crack between the wooden door and its frame, rested an eye. The eye watched as they went down the hall to their own room, and once their door closed, that door closed, removing the eye from sight. Isabella locked her door and went to her table and took out a book that she had declared one of her father's personal journals that he had kept around the middle part of his life; after leaving Sleepy Hollow and before becoming a widower. She lit two candles and set down to read through it. She had an idea she was getting somewhere.

* * *

It snowed during the night and the next day the whole of Sleepy Hollow was white. When Isabella walked to the schoolhouse in the cold, she had a companion to follow her along the way. She got along well with most men in Sleepy Hollow, but one in particular had taken an interest in her, and that was the undertaker's son, Loren Wilcox. He was about her age and nowhere near as educated; two qualities she appreciated very much in a man, but she made it clear that she had no interest for him.

"I'll have you know I'm a grieving widow and am liable to shoot the next fool who asks to marry me," she told him as they approached the schoolhouse.

"A widow? When were you married?" Loren asked as he stopped behind her.

She answered as she went up the steps, "When I was 16, I was widowed at 19."

"To who?" he asked.

"Whom," she turned back around to face him.

"What?" he asked.

"I was married to whom," she corrected him.

"That's what _I _want to know," Loren said.

"Well if you'll just listen, I'll tell you. His name was Jonathan Lawrence, he worked at a sawmill. He died three years later, Ebola."

"Horrible way to die," Loren said.

"Yes it is," she replied, "I moved back with my father after that. Truth be told, I think he was happy when Jonathan passed. Oh mind you, he didn't hate him," she shook her head, "My father could never hate anybody. That was his one weakness, even as a lawyer he could never hate a soul. But, after my mother did, he didn't like being alone. He didn't do well alone. He was a man who needed a good woman taking care of him. So after I buried Jonathan, I went back home and did the best I could with that."

"But that was…10 years ago wasn't it? How long are you going to be in mourning?"

"I haven't decided yet."

Isabella tried to get in through the door to the schoolhouse but Loren was persistent to stay with her, "You want me to stick around incase there're anymore poltergeist roaming around in there?"

She cocked her head to the side, "Who told you about that?"

"All the kids saw what they did in the schoolhouse. They told their parents and their parents know everybody else in all of Sleepy Hollow."

"I'm appreciative but no thank you, I can take care of myself. Ghosts don't scare me and I've been around enough of them that they should've by now."

"Alrighty then, I'll see you after school," Loren said as he turned away.

* * *

Snow continued throughout the day and came down so hard, a set of tracks made early in the morning were covered without a trace by midday. Come the afternoon, Brom went out to fetch more firewood and when he did, he sneaked off to meet Fred to discuss what had gone on the night before.

"She _shot_ you?" Brom asked Fred.

"I got lucky," Fred rolled up his pants leg and showed a horrible mark where the bullet from the gun had grazed him, "Scared the horse right out of its mind."

"So she will be a harder one to get rid of than Ichabod," Brom said, "We'll just have to try harder."

"_We_?" Fred repeated, "What we? After last night she nearly shot me, you gotta be kidding me _we_."

"Suppose we caught her when she was unarmed?" Brom asked.

"When _isn't_ she armed?" Fred asked, "She wears that 'durn belt all the time, ain't a soul alive in Sleepy Hollow that ever sees her without it. She _always_ has that gun and that sword at her side at all times."

"Maybe not," Brom said.

"What?"

"She has to take it off when she sleeps, she can't _possibly_ still wear it then, do you think?" Brom asked.

"I don't think, and furthermore I'm a happily married man, I ain't going to look," Fred replied.

"Alright then, _I'll_ look, tonight, when she's asleep."

"How will you know when that is? She told you she doesn't sleep some nights."

"Well then I'll just make sure that she _does_ sleep tonight."

"How are you going to do that, Brom Bones?" Fred asked.

"I'll figure a way."

Fred nodded. Off in the distance they heard a twig snap, and they looked around the corner of the shed and saw Isabella coming down the way with an apple in her mouth.

"What are you doing out here?" Brom asked.

She took the apple out of her mouth and said, "Katrina wants to know what's keeping you with the firewood."

"I'll be right there, you tell her."

Isabella nodded and turned back around and headed towards the house.

"We better figure a way to get her out of here soon before she gets too smart for her own good," Fred said, "Otherwise she's going to have a bad accident."

"We'll see to it," Brom added.

* * *

That night, in place of cider, Brom made sure Isabella got a heavy helping of wine, it was enough to knock out a moose, it would be enough to make sure she slept that night. Through the night, Isabella talked Katrina and Brom's ears off about how she'd questioned a lot of the older residents of Sleepy Hollow and hadn't been able to find anybody who would possess a motive for driving Ichabod off.

"Perhaps," Katrina said, "It's a mystery we'll never know the answer to."

"It's certainly looking that way," she agreed.

Changing the subject, Brom noted, "You look tired, Miss Crane, your eyes are looking dark and heavy."

"I feel fine," she replied, "And I'm not tired."

About two hours later, she was yawning loud enough to scare a horse and she excused herself for bed, not long after, Katrina and Brom did the same since the severe change in the weather was enough to tire anybody.

During the night, Brom crept out of bed and down the hall, he turned the knob on Isabella's door and found it unlocked, so he helped himself inside. It was pitch dark so he lit one of the candles on the table and found much to his dismay that Isabella had taken off her shoes and stockings but remained dressed and ever still with the belt and weapons around her waist. This woman was impossible and she was beginning to drive him out of his mind. Brom put out the flame and left the room and closed his door and retreated to his own bed.

All Hallow's Eve was coming soon, and unless he and Fred Dumpkey managed to find a way to get rid of her before then, the Headless Horseman would have to come out again for another midnight ride to the old church bridge. He would make sure of it if that's what it came to.

* * *

What Isabella wouldn't tell Katrina and Brom she also didn't tell most of the rest of Sleepy Hollow, however she had no problem telling Loren everything that had gone on. One night she went over to his home and the two sat on the front porch rocking and smoking their pipes, and she told him about the Headless Horseman coming after her near the river.

"You think it was really the ghost?" Loren asked.

Isabella pulled the tip of her pipe out of her mouth and puffed out a big ring of smoke. "I don't know. I shot at him, I don't know that I shot _him_ but after the bullet passed, he made the horse turn around and he disappeared down the road. That leads me to believe he was human."

"You reckon it's the same man?"

"Could be, and since he failed to scare me off before, I've reason to believe he could strike again."

"So you'll be ready for him?"

"It's hard to determine just how to be ready for a man or a thing that there's no rhyme or reason when he'll appear."

"What're you going to do?" Loren asked, "You ain't quitting are you? We need a schoolmaster here and you've lasted longer than the previous ones."

"I'm not so easy to get rid of…I'll stay, no matter what might happen, I'm staying," Isabella assured him, "That you can count on."

"That's good," Loren said.

"So, did you get an invitation to the Van Tassel All Hallow's Eve party?" Isabella asked.

"Yes indeedy, are you going to be there?"

"I live there, how could I not be?"

"Well then I guess I'll see you there," he smiled at her.

"Yes I reckon you will," she replied as she looked the other way.

"Isabella," he said to her, "Are you still a grieving widow?"

"Every day of my life," she answered as she alternated between looking straight forward and glancing over at him as she spoke, "Don't misunderstand, I knew from the start that Jonathan was dying, I could feel the life leaving his body, I could feel him grow weaker with every passing day…but I still loved him, so I married him, not expecting a long life together. Or children, or much of anything for that matter, I did it simply because I loved him. I knew our life together would not be a great one, in truth it wasn't even good for the most of it. But having me around made him feel better; or so he tried to act, even when he neared death's door. If he had to die, I hope he died happy."

"If he was married to you I'm sure he did," Loren replied.

Isabella's face scrunched up and she removed her pipe and rubbed at her eyes.

"Miss Crane, are you crying?" Loren asked as he took his pipe out of his mouth and held onto it.

"No," she sniffed in reply, "Your pipe puts out a horrible aroma."


	5. Chapter 5

All Hallow's Eve came as it did every year; and on this night, a greater part of the local population flocked to the Van Tassel estate for the yearly gathering. Everybody seemed to be there and everybody was having a good time. There was music and dancing and bobbing for apples and drinking cider and plenty of food that the Van Tassels were famous for.

Katrina saw to all the guests and made sure they were enjoying themselves while Brom stood in the center of the room and glared about at everybody. He had been acting rather strange all day and nobody, not even his wife, could figure out what the matter was. Through the entire evening, he kept a watchful eye on Miss Isabella Crane to see just what she did, what sort of tricks she would pull this evening. She seemed to behave herself though; few people talked to her during the party and those who did seemed to enjoy her company.

"Brom."

He turned and saw his wife looking at him.

"Brom would you _please_ sit down and behave yourself? You're making me nervous."

"What've you got to be nervous about?" he wanted to know.

"What have _you_ to be nervous about?" Katrina responded.

"I am not nervous," he said.

"Then why do you insist on standing the whole night?"

Brom didn't answer and instead took his seat over by the fire. But as the night wore on he kept his gaze in the general direction of the young Miss Crane. He knew she was up to something on this night, something that was no good, of that he was positive; he didn't know what she was looking to pull, but he would find out before the night was over.

"Miss Crane," Loren said as he came up to her and made a big show of acting well mannered, "Would you honor me with this dance?"

"You've no honor _before_ this dance, Mister Wilcox, now be on your way."

With a playful shove, she pushed him back and he fell to the floor, which drew a chorus of laughter from the other guests.

After a couple hours everybody started to tire and they withdrew from dancing and bobbing for apples. The guests settled down by the fire to keep warm and they simmered down to discuss the haunts of Sleepy Hollow, particularly the Headless Horseman.

"How about it, Brom?" Palmer asked, "Think we'll be seeing the Headless Horseman soon?"

"Bah," he waved Palmer off and got up from his chair and went over near the fire.

"What's the matter, Brom?" one of the old wives asked, "Don't believe in spirits anymore?"

"Spirits are just that, spirits," he insisted, his back to the woman, "…I no more believe they can do anybody any harm than anything."

"Then how do you explain Ichabod being driven away from Sleepy Hollow 30 years ago by the Headless Horseman?" another asked.

"Ichabod Crane was a scrawny coward is all…in the time he was here he never once stood against another man and if he had he would've been snapped in two, he…"

"I saw the Headless Horseman," Isabella said, "About a week ago."

Everybody's focus went off of Brom and onto her and they wanted to know what happened. Brom himself was curious to hear what she would say and at this, he turned around to watch as she explained.

"It was down near the Hudson River, he come out of nowhere, his horse black as midnight, its reins a shiny brown with a golden medallion on the horse's breast…he come at me, and I dove out of the way, and he come at me again, I took out my pistol, and I fired, and he disappeared after that."

Everybody was struck with morbid curiosity and suspicion and they wanted to hear more. The hours passed with everyone engrossed in Isabella's tale as she spoke about the Horseman, and the events at the schoolhouse, and the grave that had been prepared for her beyond the schoolhouse. Brom didn't care to hear about any of it since he'd either heard it before or had something to do with it.

"I seem to recall," one of the old gentlemen said, "When your father was schoolmaster, he'd found the schoolhouse had been vandalized…he said by 'poltergeist'."

"Yes, my father often told me about that day," Isabella confirmed it, "He said that all the desks had been stacked on top of another on top of another. In his older age, he looked back and reflected on the events that had occurred here in Sleepy Hollow, and he began to wonder."

"Wonder what?" Palmer asked.

"If all the things that had gone wrong in his presence were the work of ghosts, or if there had been a more earthly party responsible," she said, "In his youth my father was a very…skittish man, he'd jump at anything. After he came home to Connecticut and became a lawyer and started going to the courts, he didn't frighten so easily…his education taught him to question everything and he began to question what _really_ went on in this gloomy little village all those years ago. Now, assuming what happened _was_ done at the hands of a mortal being, there arises the question, who? Who would do such a thing? Who would be so cold blooded, so heartless, to do such a horrible thing to a jumpy young man who never hurt so much as a frog?"

Had Isabella been paying closer attention to Brom, she would have noticed the most displeased look on his face when she unknowingly described what he was.

"With the who comes the why, why would anybody want to frighten a spindly schoolmaster out of Sleepy Hollow? Well in that regard, the list of suspects could run very high because it was well known 30 years ago that he absolutely adored Miss Van Tassel, who," Isabella noted on the side, "Has been such a saintly hostess to put up with me these last few weeks."

There was a low array of laughter from the guests. Katrina's cheeks flushed and she sheepishly responded, "Thank you, Miss Crane."

"As I recall from the stories I heard, many of the young men in the village were smitten with her at the time, but my father seemed to really come close to beating out all the rest…but I've become well acquainted with most of the men who courted Miss Van Tassel and I fail to find that any one of them would have it in them to hold a grudge against my father over it…oh I imagine they weren't too pleased with it at the time, but certainly, none of them would have it in them to eliminate the competition for Miss Van Tassel's affection by scaring him away; certainly not by bringing the most famous legend in these parts, to life. Why I hardly believe any man could be so bold so as to _mock_ the Headless Horseman for his own personal gain. No I think if a man were to do that, he would have to be very stupid."

Brom glared at Isabella when she made her last remark, but nobody noticed.

"After all," she continued, "Suppose that person were to run into the real Headless Horseman? What might happen then? No…my father was good at speculating but he could never make up his mind whether all the trouble caused to him was the work of man or specter or perhaps it was both. Perhaps man stacked those desks, but it seems most certain that it was a real ghost that chased him out of this…pleasant little town."

The guests stayed long into the night, hanging onto every word from Isabella about her findings and theories about the Headless Horseman. The way they flocked around her to hear her story was about enough to make Brom sick and he decided on this night, he was going to have to do something about his visitor.

When the time came for partings, when the guests were getting up and leaving for their own homes, Brom said he was going out to the shed to get some more firewood. He had expected to find Fred there so they could plan what the Headless Horseman would do when Isabella stepped out for the night, but Fred Dumpkey was nowhere to be found near the shed and Brom couldn't make any sense of it.

"Fred," he quietly called out in the night, "Fred, where are you?"

He heard footsteps coming from down the way and he followed the sound of them, he walked and walked, trying to see ahead enough to find who he was following. It was then that he realized he'd come to the exact road that he'd chased Ichabod through 30 years ago. Finally the moon came out from a bunch of black clouds and shone enough light down that Brom could see who he had been trailing all this time, and it turned out to be…

"Miss Crane," he said in complete surprise, "What are you doing down here?"

"Oh I just thought I'd come and take a look at this place…the famous church bridge that everybody in Sleepy Hollow speaks of, the one of which the story made its way clear down south. I quite imagine it must have been one terrifying chase for my father along this route to the church bridge all those years ago."

"That it must have been," Brom replied.

"But I suppose if anybody would know that for certain, it would be you, wouldn't it, Brom Bones?"

There was something in her tone at that moment that let Brom know that something was amiss.

"What?" he asked as he turned to her.

"I know I don't come off as too bright because I'm a woman, and a Crane woman at that," she told him, "But I'm not stupid. I've known all these years that it was you who masqueraded as the Headless Horseman, to scare my father out of town, so you could have Katrina all to yourself. But you weren't even in love with her, you were just out for the Van Tassel family fortune and estate, weren't you? 30 years come and go and you live the good life, then I come riding into town and you've got a worry again. I might know, I might tell, might tell the whole town, might tell Katrina, and she's so innocent and trusting, she'd have no reason not to believe me because unlike you, she's not twisted and turned and suspicious. It was your own nightmare come true, Brom, and you're staring right at it…but the nightmare is far from over."

Brom was flabbergasted, he absolutely could not think of anything to say, least of all anything that would sound like what she said hadn't been the truth. Behind him he heard a horse's hooves and he turned around to see the very last person he ever expected to set eyes on again, alive or otherwise.

"Ichabod Crane!"

The ghastly pale figure of Ichabod rested atop a black horse and he looked towards Brom with the deadest eyes that ever existed. Then from behind he heard another horse's hooves, this one was stomping forth, he turned around again and saw truly the most terrifying sight that he had ever seen before, the real Headless Horseman.

"God help me!" he cried.

Ichabod Crane on one side, and the Headless Horsemen directly over on the other, and Isabella standing in the middle with an evil grin on her face.

"You've done it now, Brom Bones, you just buried yourself," she told him.

Brom turned around, looking for a way out, seeing none he turned around again, and suddenly it seemed the whole world around him was spinning and through it all, three images remained constant everywhere he turned, Ichabod, Isabella, and the Headless Horseman. They were everywhere and there was no way around any of them, there was no way out. He screamed in terror as the anticipation of what fate awaited him proved too much for him, and he collapsed to the ground.


	6. Chapter 6

It was November 3rd when Isabella spoke again with Loren, and this time it was a joining not of celebration, but of remembrance. They had just come from Brom's funeral, and Katrina, dressed in black with a veil over her face, went in the house to the kitchen while they sat on the front porch and rocked.

Isabella picked up her pipe and lit it, Loren did the same and they sat in quiet for a moment as they smoked and rocked and rocked and smoked, almost in a harmony.

"I'd like to say that I'm upset, and that Brom will be missed," Loren said, "But I can't."

"I know what you mean," Isabella said, "Ever since I first heard my father speak of him, I knew if he ever died, I would never shed a tear for him. But I do feel sorry for Katrina."

"Think she'll be alright?"

"You're the undertaker's son, you see death more than most, you tell me."

Loren shook his head, "I wouldn't count on it."

"Neither would I…I saw my husband die…and I know that a broken heart can kill just as painfully as any disease in the world. And a widow's broken heart, is the deadliest of them all," Isabella said, "I fear, Loren, I deeply fear."

"Fear what?"

"Katrina will die soon from her broken heart…first she lost my father 30 years ago, now she lost Brom Bones, her husband for the last 30 years."

"She hasn't lost much, though," Loren said.

"As far as I'm concerned she hasn't lost anything, she's just too innocent to know it."

They sat in silence for another minute just rocking back and forth and smoking their pipes. Then Loren had another thought he had to give voice to, "Isabella."

"Hmmm?" she asked.

"You killed Brom Bones, didn't you?" he asked.

She took the pipe from her mouth and let out a white ring, "Brom Bones killed himself with his guilt. He knew that he had no right to scare my father off like he did, but he didn't care, he just wanted Katrina and her family's wealth, and he got it. But he always thought my father would return, and ruin everything for him. Then I came and the same threat came with me. Brom got scared and knew that I'd find out, knew that Katrina would find out, knew that his life and everything to it would be ruined within a short matter of time unless he did something."

"So he recruited his friend, Fred Dumpkey, to assist him because he was an old man this time and not as young or strong or fast as he used to be," Loren realized.

"Yes…they put together the Headless Horseman that chased my father, and the one that came for me at the river…they even tried to frighten me away by setting up the schoolhouse as Brom had when my father taught in Sleepy Hollow."

"What about the grave?" Loren asked, "Did they put that together too?"

"Yes and no. Originally Brom had thought if he couldn't scare my father away, he would kill him and make it look like the Horseman had done it. So he dug the grave and set the tombstone long ago…but after he left town, Brom filled the grave with dirt and never thought about it again. I came across it in the night and decided to give him a scare, so I dug it fresh myself. I decided if an outside force came in and proved to be something beyond his control and his doing, the fear would set in and he'd start to panic."

"So what exactly did he see that last night?" Loren asked.

"He saw everything and he saw nothing, in his own eyes and his mind he saw my father, and the Headless Horseman…but I was the only one there that night when he died. His fear built by his conscience and his own bad decisions is what killed him."

"So now what happens?"

"Well, I solved the mystery of the man who posed as the Headless Horseman, and that man is now dead…I plan to continue my work as schoolmaster here."

"And remain a grieving widow?" Loren asked curiously.

She looked at him, "Well now that my _real_ work is done, I might have time to take a new interest, but not today, I've work to do."

"What about tomorrow?" Loren asked.

"I'm busy then too."

"How about the day after?"

"Still busy."

"When are you not going to be busy, Isabella Crane?" he asked.

"Ask me that same question after a week and you'll have your answer," she told him.

"Well what are you going to be so busy doing?" he asked.

She looked at him and firmly answered, "I'm going to be busy righting a 30 year wrong."

The next Sunday, Katrina went to the cemetery to put flowers on Brom's grave.

"It was so sudden, Brom, we never had a chance to say goodbye," she said, "I wish only that we could've had one more day, one more tomorrow."

Somewhere in the cemetery she heard a man speak. "Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow."

Katrina looked and she couldn't believe the sight that lay before her eyes. Standing across from her, beside a tree and a tall headstone, was Ichabod. Still tall and still thin and still with pale skin, black hair and a big nose, but now with 30 years of aging to him, he stood before her. "Hello, Katrina," he said.

"Ichabod, can it really be you?" she asked.

"It is indeed my dear," he said, "I heard about Brom and came to say how sorry I am."

Katrina, relieved to see Ichabod again after so many years, threw her arms around him and cried, "I was told you had died last May."

"Died? Not at all, I started to work on my last case as a Yankee Connecticut lawyer, the mother of all trials. I finally finished three weeks ago, and I came to pay you a visit."

"Oh Ichabod…but Isabella said that you had died."

Ichabod laughed, "She said that did she? Well, she's no lawyer, but she's got a fantastic imagination about her. I trust she got here alright, I had her come on ahead so she could become the new schoolmaster before somebody else took the job. Katrina, how I've missed you, and how I've long regretted leaving you in the first place."

"I missed you too, Ichabod…but now…" she looked back to Brom's tombstone, "Now we can finally be together."

"I'd like that, though it may be a little late for us to have children," he said.

Katrina laughed as they walked out of the cemetery and for the first time since All Hallow's Eve, life seemed to flow through Katrina.

Within a week, Katrina and Ichabod were married, as were Isabella and Loren, after which they lived out their lives in peace and harmony and none of them discussed Brom Bones or the Headless Horseman from there on out. But the old wives now spun a new ghostly tale that Brom Bones' ghost haunted the road to the church bridge, moaning and screaming in agony as he was tormented by the other restless spirits. Isabella and Loren aside, nobody knew what _really_ happened to Brom and that was how they were going to keep it. There were enough stories flying around Sleepy Hollow as it was, this much was their own business that belonged and stayed in their private lives, for the rest of their lives.

Katrina and Ichabod spent the rest of their days making up for lost time, and every day they came to love each other more than they thought possible the day before. It had taken them 30 years to meet again, but their love proved worth the wait, and finally the wrong so greatly told for 30 years had been set right from one Crane to the next.


End file.
